I noticed there's lots of files for i76 and nitro. I hope you don't mind me asking some, possibly stupid, questions about each utility.
First, I notice there are internet fixes for i76 here. I know the nitro one's obsolete, obviously, but is the base i76 one still useful? There's also this "custom patch" here.

Anyways, are Anti-Crash and the Hacker Tracker useful or necessary (I think I know what they do just by there name, but would I need them)? Also what do intertrace and nitrace do? And lastly, can I install both the 30 FPS patch and nitro patch III? I hope I'm not being a PITA.

Pay To Win: a video gaming concept for people who don't actually know how to play, but still want to impress their friends.

Well, the first link it to our patch developers site so you're pretty safe.

The second link reeks of DJ Edyo and his illegal, unlicensed distribution of the game...

You need to install Patch III before the 30fps patch, the 30fps patch doesn't work as a stand alone (I don't think)...

Anti-crash and Hacker Tracker were useful tools back in the day, however, there are very few hackers around these days and anyone who wants to join our games will find themselves booted faster than they can say "Hack '76"...

...however, Hacker Tracker has the AVA 5.0 Price List integrated into it so you can use it for your AVA division confirmations.

Lightfoot [FD] wrote:Well, the first link it to our patch developers site so you're pretty safe.

Old beta stuff, right?

Lightfoot [FD] wrote:
The second link reeks of DJ Edyo and his illegal, unlicensed distribution of the game...

Should I delete that link then? I found this link from another thread on this forum.
I know this sound kind of stupid, but it claims to have some fixes. Could any of them be useful (assuming you can separate them from the warez)?

Lightfoot [FD] wrote:
You need to install Patch III before the 30fps patch, the 30fps patch doesn't work as a stand alone (I don't think)...

Ahh, that clears that up. Thanks!

Lightfoot [FD] wrote:
Anti-crash and Hacker Tracker were useful tools back in the day, however, there are very few hackers around these days and anyone who wants to join our games will find themselves booted faster than they can say "Hack '76"...

...however, Hacker Tracker has the AVA 5.0 Price List integrated into it so you can use it for your AVA division confirmations.

Tada!

So I take it it's not needed unless I run my own server, or I'm paranoid.

Pay To Win: a video gaming concept for people who don't actually know how to play, but still want to impress their friends.

The links on Shane's site are for the Original I'76 fix and the BETA for Patch III...Patch II and I were actually created but never released by Activision but if you dig around you *MAY* able to find them on this site...somewhere.

The patches / fixes in the second link you've posted have been reported as "half-assed" and "unlikely to work for anyone but the developer"...assuming it's the version DJ Edyo released. He and I had a relatively short and unproductive conversation about it where he claims the game is "Abandonware" and I say it's still licensed to at least GOG (if not others) and distributing it is essentially piracy...of a $5 game.

I'm also pretty sure it includes appropriated DGVOODOO and/or nGlide components without proper consideration for their respective creators, too...but I'm not going to go check it out since I'm not really into backwards engineering "stolen" "crap"...again, assuming it's the same release as Ed's.

There are currently no plans for a reverse engineered patch for I'76. To be blunt, other than the TRIP, original has nothing to offer that isn't included in Nitro other than "Ram to Kill", which were hoping to have corrected for Nitro in the "final" patch. Any map from I'76 can be ported to Nitro and there aren't any other unique features of note...but this is my opinion. It may not be 100% accurate.

To quote a song: Keep your eyes on the road and your hands up on the wheel...and think about trying to get into a game soon.

Patch I & II can be found on this site's download section. So those are Activision officials? interesting.
I dismantled the cracked copy, which was in a self-extracting archive, and found that it appears to contain your patch III. I can't directly verify this as it's not my patch, but all the files are the same size and same modification date. In addition it also contains a new icon and updated server list. The vanilla i76 internet fix however included additional files. Not sure if he took your beta vanilla patch and tried to improve it or what. It also includes the glide wrapper like you said, but also "splash screen fixes". Not sure what those do. I you want I can upload them, minus the stolen crap.

For vanilla i76, I assume only a FPS patch would be necessary then (for the campaign at least). Makes since.
Thanks for your help.

Pay To Win: a video gaming concept for people who don't actually know how to play, but still want to impress their friends.

You've got a point, but it's just I kind of miss the splash screen and it's music. Although it can be bypassed and doesn't really add anything, it cant be used without a CD.
Also, in case anyone wants it, I found a FPS fix for the base i76 game. It also lacks a cd check!

Pay To Win: a video gaming concept for people who don't actually know how to play, but still want to impress their friends.

Alrighty, before I post the link I want to clear up a few things. I suppose I owe you an appology for not listening to you earlier about the crap launcher. I found the source to the splash screen here. It only really seams to work on the creator's machine. I suppose I just really want to play the campaign because I never actually finished it back in the day.
I also found something that I don't know if you'd find useful here. Apparently it's made by the same guy who made the base i76 fps patch (the one you told me to start a new thread for). He fixed a few of the games instruction, at least in wine. A guy in this thread says it doesn't work on windows, haven't tried it though.

Pay To Win: a video gaming concept for people who don't actually know how to play, but still want to impress their friends.

Well...seeing as how I was playing the TRIP on my Windows 7 Pro 64 box this morning (without emulation and only killing EXPLORER.EXE) I think the information on some of these sites is "inaccurate" at best. However, there are some useful tidbits, you just have to sort through them and apply them to the foundations we've established...

It takes some work but it *IS* possible despite the fact that the game is over 20 years old.

Long story longer is a *WHOLE* bunch of people out there are full of bullshit and bad ideas and very few of them swing by here to compare notes. This is why an *ENTIRE* Facebook group just sits around and talks about playing instead of actually getting out and enjoying the game....

Lightfoot [FD] wrote:Well...seeing as how I was playing the TRIP on my Windows 7 Pro 64 box this morning (without emulation and only killing EXPLORER.EXE)

I know I'm tangenting here, but I've actually read that killing of explorer is unnecessary on Windows 8 and later. They have a workaround guide here, apparently it's a pretty common problem with older ddraw games.

Lightfoot [FD] wrote:
I think the information on some of these sites is "inaccurate" at best. However, there are some useful tidbits, you just have to sort through them and apply them to the foundations we've established...

Seconded. An example of the would be how some people recommend using a CPU throttler to solve the fps issue, nevermind the fact that a cpu throttler works by giving you machine unnecessary work, slowing it down, effectively making your cpu be at 100% 24/7, which really isn't healthy for it. That 30 fps patch seams to work, however. No problems yet.

Lightfoot [FD] wrote:It takes some work but it *IS* possible despite the fact that the game is over 20 years old.

Yep, It's a shame gog didn't make it work out of the box, though it was still easier (and safer) than editing the registry to get updates installed.

Lightfoot [FD] wrote:Long story longer is a *WHOLE* bunch of people out there are full of bullshit and bad ideas and very few of them swing by here to compare notes. This is why an *ENTIRE* Facebook group just sits around and talks about playing instead of actually getting out and enjoying the game....

...but then again, I'm a tyrant. Just ask them.

I'd say 90% of the internet is like that, not very surprising. Though I still like to double check, as you say "paranoia can be your friend". Plus I have OCD (no joke).

Pay To Win: a video gaming concept for people who don't actually know how to play, but still want to impress their friends.

Killing EXPLORER.EXE may be unnecessary in Windows 8 and above, however, I'm running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit and it is recommended or you get pallet corruption. This only holds true for original I'76, though. Nitro runs fine in game and only the menus are corrupted without killing the process.

CPU throttles are garbage and that's all I have to say about that. Use something that limits framerate at the GPU and amazing things happen...like the game actually runs. If you're hard footin' and desperate you can always use a VSYNCH option and that will get you down to your monitors refresh rate between 50-72.

GOG doesn't acknowledge that this site exists so they can get bent. I've tried three times to help them help everyone else but they're too cool to even reply so they get what they get...which is a whole bunch of people wanting refunds.

Feel free to double check. Feel free to triple check. Feel free to be paranoid...however, that doesn't discount the fact that we've been here as the custodians of the game since 2001 and seem to be the only group playing regularly. That would imply that we've been at least on the right track...however, that doesn't mean we'll be able to get everyone running outside of normal resolutions, in a 3D mode, with all the features working properly.

Remember, when this game came out processors were measured in megahertz, RAM in megabytes and bandwidth in baud...

As for your OCD, it holds nothing on mine...that's why I had my Lightning for the first mission of the TRIP this morning.